“Stop it.” I pushed playfully at his shoulders but really I needed him to stop or I was going to start crying.
He laughed again, the rumbling against my chest doing happy things to me down south. Adam gave my shoulder another quick kiss and sat up, straddling me as he pulled off his T-shirt. I drank my fill of him, biting my lip as my eyes took him in. I’d forgotten how beautiful he was—broad shoulders and lean muscles. Abs to die for.
His eyes never left me as his hands went to the buckle on his belt. I shivered with anticipation as he drew the zipper on his jean down. “This morning I’m making love to you because our first time should be about that. Plus, no matter how great you’re feeling, and I can tell you’re feeling a lot better, your body must still be exhausted. We’re taking it nice and slow.” He pushed down his jeans and underwear and my breathing stuttered as his erection sprang free, jutting up and out, hard and throbbing. Now I knew why the bugger was so confident. He was walking around with that in his trousers.
“You’re making ‘mmm’ noises,” Adam told me with laughter in his voice as he turned to shimmy his jeans clean off.
“I am not!” I protested, blushing again, and realizing I’d been so lost in staring at him that there was a great possibility I had been making ‘mmm’ noises.
“You were. It’s fucking adorable.” He reached for my underwear. I tilted my hips to help him ease them down my legs, and as he did he stopped every now and then to kiss my bare skin. He pushed my left knee up and I watched him with growing heat coiling in the pit of my stomach as he trailed kisses up my calf, across my knee, and along my inner thigh. “Your legs go on forever,” he whispered, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “I can’t wait to have them wrapped around me while I’m inside you.”
“Adam . . . ” I was completely at his mercy.
I repeated his name when his head descended between my legs and his tongue licked gently at my clit. He worked me with his mouth, kissing and licking and sucking until I came fast and hard against him.
I was still crying out to God as Adam kissed his way up my stomach and then stopped to draw my nipple into his hot mouth. He played with me a while, all the time murmuring compliments and words of love, until eventually I was wound so tight I begged him to come inside me.
At the pressure of him between my legs, I tensed momentarily. Feeling it, Adam threaded his fingers through mine and held my hands down on the bed while he stared into my eyes, anchoring me to him in every way he could. His lips parted on exhalation as he pushed inside me and sank deep. I gasped and lifted my hips in instinct causing a delicious frisson of pleasure through us both. Adam studied me, his expression tender. “I love you, Ellie Carmichael,” he whispered, his words heavy with sincerity.
I nodded and moved my hips again, panting slightly as I replied, “I love you, Adam.”
His grip on my hands became almost painful and he slid out of me nearly entirely before gliding back inside. I undulated against him, and we caught a wave, a slow rhythm that grew and grew until I was desperate for the finale. My legs were wrapped around him now, my thighs squeezing him tighter, begging for more.
“Adam,” I cried out, pushing against his hands, wanting to touch him, wanting to grasp him against me. “Harder, please.”
He growled low in his throat and he pulled out only to slam back into me. I started murmuring nonsense, mostly saying the word “Yes” over and over again as he continued to slam into me.
“Come for me, Els,” he demanded, his eyes on my face. “Come for me, baby.”
And like I’d been prone to doing for years, I gave him what he wanted. The rhythm hit its crescendo and I broke apart with a scream as Adam pressed his cheek to mine and tensed. I floated around in post-orgasmic space and he shuddered hard against me as he came.
We were both panting heavily, both clammy with sweat. I grinned up at the ceiling. That was what happened when you had the most amazing sex of your life. “Wow,” I whispered, sliding my arms around his back now that he’d let my hands go.
Adam lifted his cheek from mine, his features relaxed with satisfaction. His dark eyes, however, were glittering intensely. “Wow doesn’t even cover it,” he replied. “Been waiting my whole life for that.”
I bit my lip because hearing that was so nice, I wanted to cry.
He picked up on my emotions, smiled, and gave me a soft kiss. When he pulled back he frowned. “That was a bit of both.”
“What?” I frowned back at him in confusion.
“I started out making love to you but it’s your fault I ended up fucking you.”
“My fault?”
“Adam,” his voice went amusingly breathy as he imitated me, “‘Harder, please.’” He shook his head as I laughed. “I’m a man of great self-control but that . . . ”
I squeezed my thighs around him again in delight. “Are you admitting I have power over you, Adam Gerard Sutherland?”
His eyebrows puckered together as he shook his head in denial, a shake that quickly turned to a nod as I giggled beneath him. He closed his eyes in what appeared to be pleasured pain and suddenly he captured me around the waist and flipped us so he was on his back and I was lying on top of him. He held me close and I relaxed against him. I understood: He just needed to hold me for a moment and remember I was okay.
Once again I was overwhelmed by the realization that he was in love with me. I smiled and snuggled closer to him.
After a while he murmured, “You’re on the pill, right?”
“Shouldn’t you have asked that before you took me oh so wildly?”
He grinned up at me. “I wasn’t really thinking about anything but the need to take you oh so wildly.”
“Well, not to worry. I’m on the pill,” I assured him and settled back on his chest.
“Wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” he murmured, stroking my hair.
I tensed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning if an accident happened, it wouldn’t matter. An accident with you is a kid with you.”
Shock held me completely frozen as I processed this. How many times had I heard Braden joking with Adam about how terrified he was of getting a girl pregnant? It was one of the reasons Braden suspected Adam never slept with the same girl twice. In his twisted male logic, he thought it meant it lessened the chance of an accident, or at least it lessened the chance of a girl liking him so much she’d force an accident.
“You’d want a baby with me?” My throat croaked on the question.
I felt his knuckles brush down my spine in a caress that made me shiver to the tips of my toes. “Ellie, I want everything with you.”
Tears glimmering in my eyes I lifted my head and replied softly, gratefully, “I never knew you could be so romantic.”
Adam’s lips twitched in response and he shook his head against the pillow. “I’m not, but I reckon I’d do anything for you and since that has included sitting through more romantic comedies any man should have to endure, I know you’re a romantic. I just want you happy. I’ve got a lot to make up for.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “And you make it easy.” He pulled lightly on a strand of hair, his expression suddenly serious. “But if you breathe one word of it to your brother, or anybody for that matter, there will be consequences.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I won’t tell, I promise. I like knowing something about you no one else does.”
“Then we’re even.”
“How do you mean?”
He flipped me again and I squealed with laughter as he wrestled me back on the bed. Once he had me captured with my legs wrapped around his waist, he kissed me and drew back to murmur, “I’m the only one who knows sweet little Ellie Carmichael likes it when I talk dirty.”
Once again I felt my skin flush with embarrassment, but I didn’t contradict him. I couldn’t because he was so damn right.
Chapter 9
“Okay, I’ve decided you can’t give these to Joss.” Adam slammed the diary closed. “In fact, you may have
to burn them.”
I took the journal from him and added it to the pile. “Why?”
“Because you go into a lot of detail, Els. Not just about sex, but also about what I say to you before, during, and after sex.”
I tried not to laugh and failed miserably. “You mean the romantic stuff?”
He gave me an unimpressed look. “You are not giving that to Joss. She’ll tell Braden and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“You know Joss tries to be considerate, since Braden’s my brother, but sometimes things slip and what slips is that he can be a romantic too.”
Adam’s eyebrows rose and I saw his mouth start to curl mischievously at the corners. “Romantic how?”
I smiled at him. “As if I’m going to tell you and give you ammunition to torture him.”
“It’s only fair if you’re going to give him ammunition to torture me.”
Chuckling at the fear that my brother would discover Adam’s softer side, I shook my head slowly and answered casually. “I’m not.”
“What do you mean you’re not?”
“I’ve decided not to give Joss the diaries.”
Cocking his head in confusion, Adam’s eyes asked the question for him.
I shrugged. “I was going to up until that last entry. Reading it all just reminded me how much we felt, how much we feel, and how much a part of us it all is. It doesn’t belong to anyone else, and I guess I don’t want it to. It’s ours. Our history. Our story. And in a way, our future too. As much as I love her, you’re right. I can’t give that to Joss. I can’t give these to her.” I gestured to the diaries and then got up on all fours in an effort to clean up the piles of books, but I was stopped abruptly by the pressure of Adam’s hands on either side of my hips.
I looked back over my shoulder, my eyes widening slightly at the sight of him on his knees behind me with the most carnal and possessive look on his face. My lips parted as he pulled my arse into him and I felt his erection rub against me. “What are you doing?” I asked on a whisper.
In response, he slipped his hand around to the zipper on my shorts and tugged it down as his other hand tugged the zipper down on his jeans. “In a little while, we’ll go upstairs to make love, but right now I’m going to fuck my future wife on top of our history.”
Somehow Adam managed to get the f-word into the most romantic sentence ever, and I didn’t care. Instead I gasped as he rocked against me and hoarsely replied, “What about the floor? We might scratch it.”
He stroked my spine, then brought his hands back down to grip my hips and pull me harder against him. “Do you really think I give a shit about the floor right now?”
I shook my head, already flushing with anticipation. “I’m guessing not.”
Adam grinned wickedly. “Let’s start the next chapter, baby.”
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I looked upon the piece of art and wondered what the heck I was looking at. To me it was just a bunch of lines and squares in different colors with some shading here and there. It looked familiar. In fact, I thought I had a picture Cole had drawn me when he was three years old tucked away somewhere that bore a remarkable resemblance to it. Although I doubted I could expect anyone to pay three hundred and seventy-five pounds for Cole’s drawing. I also doubted the sanity of anyone who would pay three hundred and seventy-five pounds for the piece of canvas that looked like it had been sitting next to a railroad at the exact time a train full of paint careened off the rails and crashed.
However, chancing a glance around me, I could see that most of the people in the gallery liked the artwork. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to get it. In an effort to appear more sophisticated for my boyfriend’s sake, I adopted a pensive expression and moved on to the next canvas.
“Um, okay, I don’t get it,” a low, husky voice announced beside me. I would have known that voice anywhere. Its American-accented words were disturbed here and there by a lilt, or the sharper consonants of a brogue, all a consequence of its owner having lived in Scotland for almost six years.
Relief flooded me as I brought my head down to meet the gaze of my best friend, Joss. For the first time that evening, I smiled brightly. Jocelyn Butler was a straight-talking, ballsy American girl who tended bar with me at a pretty swank place called Club 39. It was a basement bar on one of the city center’s most famous streets—George Street—and we’d been working together for five years now.
Kitted out in a designer black dress and Louboutins, my vertically challenged friend looked hot. So did her boyfriend, Braden Carmichael. Standing behind Joss, his hand resting possessively on her lower back, Braden exuded confidence. Drool-worthy, he was the kind of boyfriend I’d been searching for, for years, and if I didn’t love Joss so much and Braden didn’t adore her past all reasoning, I would have trampled over her to get to him. Braden was almost six and a half feet tall, which was ideal for someone of my height. I was a striking five foot ten—that made me more than six feet tall in the right heels. Joss’s boyfriend also happened to be sexy, rich, and funny. And he loved Joss to distraction. They’d been together for almost eighteen months. I could feel a proposal brewing.
“You look amazing,” I told her, eyeing her curves. Unlike me, Joss had big boobs, along with hips and an ass that wouldn’t quit. “Thank you so much for coming. Both of you.”
“Well, you owe me,” Joss muttered, her eyebrow arching as she glanced around at all the other paintings. “I’m going to have to do some serious lying if the artist asks me what I think.”
Braden gave her waist a squeeze and smiled down at her. “Well, if the artist is as pretentious as her art, why lie when you can be brutally honest?”
Joss grinned back at him. “That’s true.”
“No,” I interjected, knowing that if I let her she would do just that. “Becca is Malcolm’s ex-girlfriend and they’re still friends. You go Robert Hughes on her ass and it’s my ass that gets kicked to the curb.”
Joss frowned. “Robert Hughes?”
I sighed. “He was a famous art critic.”
“I like that.” Joss grinned evilly. “You know they say honesty is next to godliness.”
“I think that’s cleanliness, babe.”
“Of course it’s cleanliness, but surely honesty is a close second?”
The stubborn glint in Joss’s eyes caused my throat to almost close up. Joss was a force to be reckoned with, and if she had an opinion or wanted to say something, there was little you could do to stop her. When I first met her she was an incredibly private person, preferring not to get involved in her friends’ personal affairs. Since meeting Braden she’d changed a lot. Our friendship had grown, and Joss was now the only one who really knew the truth about my life. I was thankful for our friendship, but in moments like these I sometimes wished she was the old Joss, the one who kept her thoughts and emotions locked up tight.
I’d been dating Malcolm Hendry for almost three months. He was perfect for me. Kind, laid-back, tall—and wealthy. Malcolm was the oldest of all my “sugar daddies,” as Joss jokingly called them. Although at thirty-nine, he was hardly old. He was, however, fifteen years my senior. I didn’t care. Convinced that he might be the one, I didn’t want Joss jeopardizing the progress of our relationship by insulting his good friend.
“Jocelyn”—Braden gripped her waist again, eyeing me and my growing panic—“I think it best if you practice the art of artifice tonight after all.”
Finally reading my expression, Joss placed a reassuring hand on my arm. “I’m kidding, Jo. I’ll be on my best behavior. I promise.”
I nodded. “It’s just . . . things are going well, you know.”
“Malcolm seems like a decent guy,” Braden agreed.
Joss made a sound at the back of her throat, but we both ignored it. My friend had made her opinion clear on my choice of boyfriend. She w
as convinced I was using Malcolm and he was using me. It was true that he was generous and I needed that generosity. However, the bigger truth was I really cared about him. Ever since my “first love,” when I was sixteen years old, John, I’d fallen for charming providers and the idea of security for me and Cole. But John had gotten fed up with playing second fiddle to my family, and after six months he’d dumped me.
It had taught me a valuable lesson.
It had also given me a new requirement in a boyfriend—he had to have a good job, be driven, hardworking, and have a good income. No matter how hard I worked, with my nonexistent qualifications and lack of any real talent, I was never going to make enough money to secure a stable future for my family. I was, however, pretty enough to secure a man with good qualifications and talent.
About a year after I pieced myself back together from the heartbreak of my failed romance with John, Callum entered my life. Thirty, a well-off solicitor, gorgeous, cultured, sophisticated. Determined to make it last, I became what I imagined was the perfect girlfriend to him. It was a habit, becoming someone else, especially since it seemed to work. Callum thought I was perfect for a while. We were together two years—until my secretiveness about my family and my inability to “let him in” drove too deep a wedge between us and he left me.
It took me months to scrape myself back together after Callum . . . and when I did, it was to run into the arms of Tim. Horrible decision. Tim worked for an investment company. He was so mind-numbingly self-absorbed that I actually dumped him. Then there was Steven. Steven was a sales director for one of these annoying door-to-door sales companies. He put in long hours, which I thought might work in our favor, but it didn’t. Joss thought Steven had dumped me because of my inability to be flexible about anything because of my family obligations. The truth was I dumped Steven. Steven made me feel worthless. His comments about my general uselessness brought back too many memories, and although even I thought there was little to recommend me other than my looks, when your boyfriend said the same and ultimately made you feel like a paid escort, it was time to call it quits.
Until Fountain Bridge: (InterMix) Page 10
